The SIMDALEE2-consortium during the kick-off meeting on the roof of the Vienna University Technology.

Stack of graphene layers on a copper substrate imaged at extremely low energies, together with energy dependences of the local reflectivity revealing number of stacked layers via number of reflectivity minima.

Ultrahigh-vacuum scanning electron microscope with detection of reflected and transmitted electrons of any energy and analysis of Auger electrons and desorbed ions.

In either SEM or NFESEM (see diagram) the emitter tip radius has now reached the nm-scale e.g. R=1-5nm when the traditional FN theory –valid for planar surfaces- is not valid anymore.
For R>5nm Kyritsakis and Xanthakis have produced a theory which gives a better tunneling probability and hence current.

For R<5nm one has to start from the beginning i.e. the Schroedinger equation has to be solved taking into account the specific geometry of an emitter tip. Currently, we are working on the solution of both the Laplace and Schroedinger equations in curvilinear coordinates and in particular parabolic coordinates.